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<title>Pandora by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23592784">Pandora</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur'>Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Parental Death, Implied/Referenced Sexual Abuse, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:46:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23592784</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiyoko opens a box of old photos in Mahiru's room.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Koizumi Mahiru/Saionji Hiyoko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pandora</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hiyoko kneels on Mahiru's floor, photos fanned around her.</p><p>She recognizes each, and recalls the timeframe in which they were taken.</p><p>Now, however, it seems impossible that Mahiru would have taken these photos.</p><p>It's only with one person present that anyone smiles in them. Junko.</p><p>(Fucking Junko.)</p><p>In this one, she's with Hiyoko and Ibuki, an arm slung over each of their shoulders. Nothing but a blaze in the background. Everyone is smiling; Hiyoko wonders, briefly, what it'd really be like to see Ibuki not smiling like she's happy, and shudders, a chill in her back but swoop of revulsion in her gut, on remembering what sorts of things she's seen her smile in the face of, rejecting every memory of having done the same.</p><p>In the next, only Junko smiles, with heavy eyelids and long eyelashes and the tip of her tongue just-curving out of her mouth. She has an arm around Mikan's waist, pulling her close - her other arm twists one of Mikan's behind her, hard, and Mikan moans in dewy-eyed delirium, the twist of pain still clear around her mouth, her skirt pulled up along her hip by one of Junko's knees.</p><p>That photo is the first in a set. The others go further.</p><p>They make Hiyoko want to fume and spit, as she keeps on filing through them with a nauseating revolted rapture, almost marveling as she watched herself consider apologizing to Mikan, and then remind herself that she was not the one who did this so that she wouldn't have to, instead laser-focusing every angry and hurt feeling on Junko who did do this -- did do this to all of them.</p><p>Tears well and the hot sorrow begins to tug at her face, set fires, twitch muscles and bend lips, as she gets to another set of photos.</p><p>Mahiru shouldn't have taken these, is what the thoughts become. Those of Junko come again - the pain gets hotter; how could you make Mahiru take these...!</p><p>...These photos are early. One depicts Sonia in a battle tank, cheerfully saluting in front of the wreckage of a city.</p><p>The next depicts Teruteru, in the most glamorous pose he can manage, in front of a little shop burning down - the banner of its name already too-consumed by the flames to be legible.</p><p>...The next is of her, and she hiccups a cry at it as soon as she files to it.</p><p>She doesn't need to parse it to know what it depicts.</p><p>She remembers.</p><p>She knows it's her standing before a stage. Like so many of the others in their pics, putting on the kind of smile Mahiru shouldn't want to take a picture of - throwing a little peace-sign at the camera, her arm and torso framing a fallen stage light.</p><p>Underneath the light and across the stage is a broad pink splatter.</p><p>And she knows whose it is, and she wails, feeling more alone than she ever has in life in that moment.</p><p>Feeling the minor shock of a click behind her - jumping on her knees, slowly blinking and turning to look over her shoulder, still with that photo pulled close to her chest.</p><p>Mahiru's there, of course. She doesn't change position much, as she closes the door, looking down at Hiyoko agape.</p><p>...Before she does close the door, and shakes out her head, lightly, and her face falls. "Hiyoko," she says, softly, and Hiyoko notices that the change of color on her face is... too heavy; too mottled. "It's... like I told you. I put those away because... we don't need them. We know what we did; looking at stuff like that just won't help..."</p><p>...Hiyoko has already started waddling towards her, still on her knees.</p><p>Holding her arms out - sleeves hanging. Eyes wide and pleading in a... signal.</p><p>Mahiru relaxes her stance, briefly. Face still a mottled pink, a tension still in every feature of her face.</p><p>...And then she readily stoops down, on one knee, knight-in-shining-armor-like. She wraps her arms around Hiyoko.</p><p>It's Hiyoko who pulls her close - tightens her arms, hooks her chin over Mahiru's shoulder, can be the only one to feel Mahiru's hold, blinks slowly with a window of view framed by her hair and neck and shoulder.</p><p>Getting why Mahiru put things away - she's good; she wouldn't have taken these pictures, and so it's good she's hiding them, because they're not really her pictures.</p><p>At the same time, a fire in her blood giving her anger at the way things were. Have been, to abate the sadness.</p><p>While... all the while, in the warmth of the magnetic pull, she - warm pulses of a fluttery heartbeat within a field of more ache - </p><p>...Thinks that she will never let go, nah, of the last thing she loves that she hasn't destroyed.</p><p>Nuzzling side-to-side against the space below Mahiru's collarbone, turning her face up until she touches her like a cat and she feels reassured that she isn't alone.</p>
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